Book Review: Playground by Richard Powers

My God this is a beautiful book. This is why I read: to discover gems like this. I don’t think it’s perfect; it gets a little confusing at the end and some of the threads remain unresolved. But it is absorbing through and though, and it has deep sympathetic characters, and it deals with important, cutting edge topics.

Ostensibly it concerns the proposal by a group of Americans to begin building, on the tiny Polynesian island of Makatea, floating cities whose inhabitants can live on the open sea. The concept of floating cities intrigues me, and that’s why I picked up the book. However, the floating cities idea never even comes close to initiation. It is a frame on which to construct a complex plot that involves the lives of four characters of starkly different backgrounds, the importance of protecting the ocean and its ecosystems, and the inevitability of advanced artificial intelligence.

Rafi Young, a young Black man deeply absorbed in literature and reading, forms an unlikely friendship with a young white man named Todd Keane, partially due to their mutual fascination with games such as Chess and Go. Todd goes on to become a tech billionaire (by inventing a complex game/social network called Playground) and one of the main financers of the floating cities project, while Rafi marries a part-Tahitian woman named Ina Aroita and goes with her to live on Makatea. The other main character is a French Canadian woman named Evie Beaulieu; her father helped invent the aqualung, and Evie’s early exposure to it helps to inspire a lifetime of exploring the ocean as a marine scientist. It is mainly through her eyes that readers experience the wonder and awe and vastness and importance of the ocean.

Powers tells the background stories of each of these main characters, alternating between these flashbacks and the situation concerning the floating city concept in the present day. At no time, though, do the cuts from scene to scene become confusing. Powers deftly and artistically weaves the disparate pieces into a coherent whole, so that we are carried along on what becomes a fast-paced ride from the past into an uncertain future. What is intriguing is that Powers does not make the solution simple. There are compelling arguments for both sides. If the floating cities are constructed on Makatea, it will mean well-paid jobs for the islanders, and among other amenities a new hospital and a new school. However, the construction will also cause irreparable damage to the marine ecosystems around the island and to the casual, comfortable way of life to which the island’s residents have grown accustomed.

I don’t want to give too much away, because part of this book’s appeal is in the excitement of discovering these things for yourself. What shines brighter and brighter as the story proceeds, though, is Powers’ genuine concern for the environment, a concern he passes on mainly through Evie’s life and observations as an undersea explorer and oceanographer. What also becomes clear early on is that Powers is a very powerful and poetic writer. He doesn’t merely tell the story; through his precise, complex descriptions he helps readers dive in and experience what is happening along with the characters.

All in all, this is a first-rate, absorbing novel that I highly recommend. And having now glimpsed his talent, I’ll be looking forward to reading more of Powers’ work.